Hiding Making - Showing Creation: The Studio from Turner to Tacita Dean

The artist, at least according to Honoré de Balzac, is at work when he seems to be at rest; his labor is not labor but repose. This observation provides a model for modern artists and their relationship to both their place of work-the studio-and what they do there. Examining the complex relationship between process, product, artistic identity, and the artist’s studio-in all its various manifestations-the contributors to this volume consider the dichotomy between conceptual and material aspects of art production. The various essays also explore the studio as a form of inspiration, meaning, function, and medium, from the nineteenth century up to the present.

Rachel Esner is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She is the author of a number of articles on the artist’s studio and image of the artist in the nineteenth century, as well as co-editor of Vincent Everywhere. Van Gogh’s (Inter)National Identities (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2010). Ann-Sophie Lehmann is professor for art history & material culture at the University of Groningen. Her research has a process-based, transhistorical approach and shows how materials, tools, and practices partake in the meaning making of art. Sandra Kisters is assistant professor in modern and contemporary art at the University of Utrecht.